Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers (62-45) had a mostly comfortable win in the opener against the Reds last night, led by Yoshinobu Yamamoto‘s seven-inning, one-run outing. Mookie Betts set the table by reaching base three times, and Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Freddie Freeman drove in all five of the Dodger runs. Blake Treinen made his first appearance since April in the ninth and struggled, leaving the bases loaded with the winning run at bat for Jack Dreyer, who got his first career save on three pitches. The Mets Mets’d it up and allowed a Padre walk-off win to keep the Dodgers only four games up, and now the Dodgers turn to Tyler Glasnow coming off a dominant start.
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| 4:10 PM | Cincinnati | |||
| SS | Betts | LF | Lux (L) | |
| DH | Ohtani (L) | 2B | McLain | |
| C | Smith | SS | De La Cruz (S) | |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | DH | Hays | |
| RF | T. Hernández | RF | Fraley (L) | |
| CF | Pages | 1B | Steer | |
| 3B | Edman (S) | 3B | Marte | |
| 2B | Rojas | CF | Benson (L) | |
| LF | Ruiz | C | Trevino | |
| P | Glasnow (R) | P | Lodolo (L) |
Glasnow has been excellent since his return from the IL and absolutely dominated the Twins last Wednesday. He allowed three hits and a run over seven innings with one walk and 12 strikeouts, the most he’s had since April of last season (also against the Twins). Royce Lewis gave him issues (doubled and homered for the lone run), but he struck out six of the final seven batters he faced and his 19 whiffs were also the second-most he’s had as a Dodger. Glasnow’s allowed two earned runs and nine hits over 18 innings in his three starts off the IL, with five walks and 23 strikeouts. Glasnow faced the Reds in LA last season and turned in one of his worst starts of the season, allowing four runs and six hits in five innings. Most of that damage came due to Elly De La Cruz being a menace on the basepaths and Austin Barnes being behind the plate. De La Cruz singled in the first, stole second and scored on a two-out double. In the third he hit a ground-rule double, stole third and scored on a two-out single. He walked in the fifth, stole second and third and scored on a two-out Moriyama Special (wild pitch on a strikeout). He should consider not letting Elly get on base today, IMO.
Nick Lodolo makes his 22nd start of the season tonight, setting a new career high. Somehow this is already his fourth Major League season and he’s looking like the ace he was projected to be. Lodolo has a 3.08 ERA/3.79 FIP in 122 2/3 innings with 112 strikeouts and only 23 walks issued. He’s coming off the best start of his career, throwing his first complete game shutout with four hits and no walks allowed and eight strikeouts in Washington. He was six pitches away from a Maddux and only faced three batters over the minimum as one of the four hits he allowed was a single to James Wood, who got caught stealing after. Lodolo had his worst start of the season in Cleveland on June 11 (3 2/3 innings, six runs allowed). Since then he’s allowed nine runs in 43 2/3 innings over seven starts, with the Reds winning six of those seven games. He’s technically thrown two complete games in that time, but one of those was a six inning game that got rained out. This is Lodolo’s first look at the Dodgers, but Tommy Edman, Michael Conforto and Miguel Rojas are a combined 4-for-10 against him with four singles.
Lodolo’s had success with a relatively blue Savant page. He’s pretty much middle-of-the-pack in nearly all their metrics, other than two that he’s elite at. He’s in the 87th percentile for whiff rate (31.9 percent) and 96th percentile for walk rate (4.6 percent, the fourth-lowest among qualified starters). Lodolo throws a four-pitch mix pretty evenly, with all usage rates between 20 and 30 percent. He’s thrown a four seamer (28.4 percent), curve (28.1 percent), change (22 percent, almost exclusively to righties) and sinker (21.6 percent).
Will Smith returns to the lineup after Dalton Rushing started the last two games. Edman also returns to the lineup after being unavailable yesterday. Esteury Ruiz starts in left. Gavin Lux starts in left for the Reds and bats leadoff after DHing last night.
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Alex Freeland is officially up, with Hyeseong Kim hitting the IL.
Bruce wrote a primer on Freeland this morning so go read that. They were reportedly deciding between Kim or Edman for the IL and Edman seemingly passed his workout earlier today, so Kim goes on the IL. He’s looked off at the plate physically over the last few games, and now they’re calling it shoulder bursitis. They’re hoping it’s a short-term issue for Kim and he’s coming back to LA for an injection.
Freeland could get his first MLB start at third base tomorrow, per Dave Roberts. The expectation is he'll get some runway at least in the short term, with the Dodgers also needing to manage Tommy Edman's ankle (even though it wasn't serious enough to land him on the IL). https://t.co/NMzSNyWyuK
— Sonja Chen (@SonjaMChen) July 29, 2025
Freeland should get some playing time and could get the start at third tomorrow against Nick Martinez.
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Tanner Scott is already starting a throwing progression.
Pretty promising sign. Hopefully he can have a nice rehab assignment sooner rather than later and work out the issues he was having performance-wise.
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The rotation is set for the weekend in Tampa.
Shohei Ohtani starts tomorrow and while it’s not a direct piggyback, Emmet Sheehan could follow him. Clayton Kershaw starts Friday and Yamamoto starts Sunday, with Blake Snell‘s return likely being on Saturday.
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First pitch is scheduled for 4:10 PM PT and will be on SportsNet LA.
